I've removed the star rating system because of abusive behavior by three BC members.
It is not okay to give 1-star ratings nearly half the time, they are supposed to be rare. The person who did so may not have understood that but it is still abuse of the system.
It's also not okay to search out all the stories by one or two writers and loball all of them. That's just vindictive behavior and will not be tolerated. Logging in as Guest Reader to repeat the offense can be detected and is proof of intentional abuse. You know who you are and if I trusted my temper more you would now be banned from the site, consider yourself on probation. And if you're not sure if this is you, yeah, it's you. Don't expect a PM from me on this, I'm too pissed to be civil.
It's also not okay to create a login just to make one-star votes on all current stories for a day. That's a stupid, mean stunt that hasn't been repeated, thankfully.
So, until I find or write software that makes it easier to track such abuses, no star ratings. Sorry.
- Erin
Comments
It's okay.
The star ratings were nice, but if someone is going to abuse them that badly, then we're better off without them for the moment anyways. It shows disrespect not only to the authors themselves, but to everyone who maintains or even just visits the site.
Why would someone do that to begin with, though? Anyways...
Melanie
Bummer
I was just getting used to seeing stars, too.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Always Leave It To
.. the few jerks that ruin it for the rest of us. its pissing me off to the point perhaps in order to post anything at all, even a star, each person should have a subscription they pay for. If someone abuses the system, their account gets erased and they are out of them oney. The casual creeps doing this are not going to pay a fee to come in and do that if it costs them money. Only allow reading for non subscribers. Its not a great idea, but i don't see a reliable method of deterring these creeps other than ip track/pursue and prosecute in court each offender.
Sephrena Lynn Miller
Star Struck
I have never knowingly used the star system on any story. However, since I discovered it I have used it to see how good my recently posted story or essay was as I know I may have a tough time telling the forest from the trees. It did have a value, but apparently a mean spirited individual or two took out all the gold.
Shelly aka shalimar
Oi
While I was not quite a fan of stars, what I did like about the my stars page was that it gave you one simple table view of your postings so you could easily see where you were getting new comments.
And alas, without this, I must go on a killing spree. Or an chocolate cake spree. One of those two.
Probably the cake one.
Hmm...
A table just for authors of all their recent stories like in My Stars is a good idea, Krunchy, thanks. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Sometimes
When a well intentioned idea gets derailed by the ever present anal orifice a better idea emerges. I doubt that I know how much time and effort went into the Star programming but I agree with the Admiral that the utility, for me as a scribbler, was in that table. You could see comments (new), and hits, (Not that I care, of course, can I bullshit or what?) summarized quite nicely for all of your efforts. I thought that was actually cooler than the stars stuff. Maybe it could be as simple as redoing it sans Stars, I would/did find that a great benefit. What do you think Erin?
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
So far, no salami
Just tried it, it didn't work. Will figure out why not later.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Got it!
Couldn't edit old one, had to make a new one.:)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I see it! My Stories, cool!
Erin,
I love it! It makes me look so slim and sexy! :) Folks, check out your stories at "My Stories" .. Thanks! I agree with Stevie too, but I don't have to do the work for that. :)
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Nice!
This is useful :) Yay Erin!
Sordid stories
Or is that sorted? Cause they're sortable! By alphabet, date, hits or comments, up or down.
Erin, that's just hot!
-- Donna Lamb, Flack
-- Donna Lamb, ex-Flack
Some of my books and stories are sold through DopplerPress to help support BigCloset. -- Donna
I read them all eventually
I guess I have been offline too long and missed this but why a rating. I try to read them all and this is one of few places where I can find these kind of stories. I don't have an account yet because I am still trying out providers and it is a lot of work to go to everywhere you have an account and change your e-mail, etc.
I hope everyone supports all the writers and these are stuff dreams are made of. Everyone keep up to good work. Especially Erin
Velvet
stars and trolls
Well, here we go again! It is sometimes an unpleasant, bitchy little world within which we live.
Although essentially a non-participating member for well over a year, I was recently encouraged to post stories to BC by someone for whom I have immense respect. I knew coming in that my genre was not everyone's cup of tea at this site, but that's okay, I hope. I wanted the other elements this site offers - especially quality author interaction and warmth, as trite as that may sound.
Erin is a sweetheart. This site deserves better than to be, in effect, restrained by the acts of a few vindictive miscreants. I offer no solutions as technically they are beyond me, but I, as with most authors, like as much feedback as we can get. The star system was another indication, however imperfect.
The dilemma here is that no cyber system in our lifetime (and I hope in no future lifetime) is perfect. Critical, rational human judgment is required in all cases. Statistical data of any type, and the unscientific star system specifically, must be carefully evaluated it within context.
Having rambled on, allow me a stab at a practical answer to the problem, which I have pre-admitted I am not qualified to answer.
Keep the present system as it is - the system is not flawed for what it purports to be, it's the pathetic miscreants abusing it who are flawed. Seems Erin is an ace at hunting the abusers down. Simply hunt them down, publicly denounce them and ban the trolls if necessary. In other words, allow what is in place to work.
Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but it's a question of who's going to be in control. It's simply a question between those who wish to build and those who wish to destroy.
5 Star Rating Systems
Well you just added a feature that provides the main benefit I got from the Stars, so I'll pass on addressing why I liked the system as it is a moot point.
I agree that the latter incidents you mention constitute abuse. However, I tend to disagree on the first. Let me explain.
Five star rating systems have an inherent weakness. The people who utilize these systems to rate something tend to have strong opinions that gravitate to the extreme ends of the scale. People in the mid-range just don't tend to rate things. Therefore, even though the average rating may hover around 3, this is simply because the individual ratings at either end of the scale are averaging out. In the case of BC, it indicates that a person who reads and rates a lot of stories is going to have a large percentage of ratings that may be to either end of the scale.
Here's the synopsis of a paper regarding this subject, which includes a link to a PDF of the full paper:
http://sloan.ucr.edu/category/working-papers/product-reviews/
Anyway, my point is, it seems a bit unfair to say someone who has a pattern of ratings that fits the average person is abusing the system. This pattern is just a basic weakness in these single point rating systems.
As I've already said, it's a moot point. Your My Stories link will provide the authors with an easy way of checking the progress of their works, which is what I found very useful.
Scott
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Lazarus Long - Robert A. Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love'
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Scott
While I agree with you regarding the law of averages and migration toward a mean, central tendency and all of that, your argument assumes the rating came from a reading, and as considered opinion of the reader as their own psychology allows for the content. What I know personally is that some people here went to a story and gave it one star and drove on, a rating "drive by" if you will. Oddly, I don't assume that the balancing five stars came the same way, but, that would be silly, I am a genius after all!:) :) :)
Actually, it was pretty funny and except for the 13 story one star rating night which was accompanied by emails from a truely disturbed person, harmless. I would have been flattered if I thought the fool could actually read 13 of my stories in one night. Mostly, I was just annoyed.
Frankly, I liked the stars but as I said, the table was the most useful part for me.
Cool work Erin! Thanks.
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
VERY Nice!
I very much like the clean summary, Erin.
Thank you!
Itinerant
Nicole (a.k.a. Itinerant)
--
Veni, Vidi, Velcro:
I came, I saw, I stuck around.
boy...
...go to bed and miss all the drama. I won't pretend to understand why someone would... let alone 3 someones. Thanks as ever for your efforts Erin... had a look at the my stories thing, very neat and I think a noticable improvement. So, good from bad.
Thanks again.
Kristina
A Worthy Trade
To be sure. Doesn't justify what happened, but makes it a good learning experience and helped to advance the site some more.
Love the new box, Erin!
Melanie E.
Oh, Well...
I'm not particularly crushed about losing the rating system -- after all, the site got along for years without it, and I'm quite satified choosing the stories I read by category and author and not (as Angela said earlier this week) through evaluations by anonymous people that clearly don't share one's likes and dislikes.
I'm just disappointed that people didn't use the system responsibly in the way Erin originally described it.
Eric
Like others
I'm disappointed that not only someone but THREE someones abused something that was supposed to increase the enjoyment of BCTS 99 Shoes. I liked the stars but took them with a grain of salt so to speak. I like to think that I'm willing to listen to others to better my scribbles. What's good and works vs okay that didn't turn out so good. The stars, comments, number of hits are not a great indicator of this but hey at least its something. The 'my stories' tab is nice and useful thanks Erin!
Hugs!
grover
A question about the recent column
Hi Erin,
How recent is the recent column. Is it an set time frame like in the last week, last day, or is it since I last looked at 'My Stories' or visited BC/TS?
I suppose if it's one of the last two then I can figure it out for myself. Maybe the column title could explain things a bit better, i.e. 'Since Last Visit', 'Since Last Check' or something.
As much as I love open source software such as Drupal, the criticism of it being less than friendly to non technical or programmer types is for the most part true. I'm assuming this is a custom hack of the Fivestar ratings module (or similar module) so there is no way for the curious to even look at the PHP code, and see what is being done. Of course to do that one has to know PHP, or rather PHP5, before one can understand the code and figure out what is going on.
Most people will just use the trial and error approach to try and figure out how things work, if they are curious enough. Should they have to do that or should it be clear from the first look at the page?
I am not trying to be nit picky, I'm just curious and trying to make things easily understandable.
Arwen
One down.
So it doesn't appear to be based on going to the My Stories page. Visited the My Stories page several times and always the same numbers up there.
I think I have it figured out.
Looking at the page source code the Recent column appears to be the node (story) page hit count for that day.
Maybe the column should be renamed from 'Recent' to 'Hits Today'.
Just a suggestion.
Respectfully,
Arwen
Baby and Bathwater
This strikes me more than a little as "throwing out the baby with the bathwater."
Allowing readers to provide feedback is a good thing. It can be useful to the authors, but more importantly, I think it's useful to the site. Giving the readers an outlet for their emotions also gives them a sense of belonging/participation/ownership, at least on an emotional basis. And from such things is Community built. Tomorrow is the Gay Pride Parade in NYC, and my Sweetie and I will be going, both for the spectacle, and to lend our support. We believe in building Community.
Sure, providing outlets will allow people to express themselves, and you may not always agree with them, and some people are just idiots. But, censoring those expressions, or taking down the means of expression, can't be a good thing in the long run.
As it was, the star ratings were closely held, concealed from all except the author and site management. Taking down the entire system because of three readers who didn't like some stories, or some authors, seems like a gross overreaction.
Personally, I mostly found it useful to give 4 or 5 stars to stories I liked a lot, but didn't have a coherent comment for, or at least nothing new to say about them that others hadn't said better.
The above, of course, is just my opinion, and I neither expect that anyone will agree with me, nor am looking for an argument on the subject. I respect anyone else's opinion to the opposite.
The Truth about Babies and Bathwater
There are some babies that should be set out by the curb; and I've run across some mighty fine bathwater the Smithsonian might consider preserving for posterity. When a bath is exactly the right temperature, properly scented and oiled, and the world is held at bay -- life is good.
Actually the "recent" star ratings were available for everyone. As a story gets the bulk of its reads during the first two weeks, a low star rating could adversely impact the number of readers.
I like the new report. I hope it will proved the same "new" elert for new comments on stories as the old.
Perhaps the new report should be called "The Phoenix."
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Ratings and choices
The discarding of the fivestar system was due to several things. It took me a couple of hours to track the abuse down and the time I spent was part of the annoyance. No one had much good to say for the system, it had failures and lacks from the beginning. I considered it experimental. The cool thing about Drupal is someone will come along with a better system sooner or later. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
also, now, there are the shadows of the leaves
I too find this whole thing so sad. I guess at some point (points) in our lives we all begin to look for the friendly well lighted places, and for me BC has become one, but (and this has been said better before.) we're a prickly group. Having come from many directions, we all arrived here, and we all have felt many stings along the way. Slight begets slight, and sometimes the slights and insults (if not looked for) are found only because they are expected. I too am well practiced at sensitivity (I know I am in the worse sense; I try to be in the better.), I see such in things that are more likely due to haste or have no relation to me. When people use such things as an excuse to try to spoil my cafe, it makes me feel more lonely than angry.
More to the point: I for one liked the idea of the stars, though I do not think they worked well at all. I (like Stevie above, but for a different reason.) know my stories are not to everyone's taste. I know that hit counts do not mean actual reads. I know this is true with the writing I like, and more so with the things I am only satisfied with. But I do want to continue to write the different and even unusual (I don't know why. A challenge? A desire to annoy?) I just wonder how many people do finish what I write. How many play with me all the way to the end? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? Stars seemed like a possible way to get an answer, but few used them. I wonder if a one-star system would work better. Just a quick pat on the head to the authors whose stories one reads. But even that someone might find a way to abuse. So... pues nada.
Anyway, I do like the My Stories tab. And people, just be nice! Please.
Hugs & Joy
Jan
New feature -- votes
Members and authors can now vote for favorite stories. It's a 1 or 0 rating (for authors 2 or 0). Total votes and weekly votes will show up in My Stories and links will be provided for members and guests to see the votes. This is on a two week trial.
Once you've voted on a story, you can't vote on that story again for a while. Currently that period is set to 4 days and 4 hours.
There are no negative votes, only positive ones. Yes this is a story I would recommend. Or don't vote.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Voting
Changed one thing, you now have to open the story to vote on it. Box in top right shows daily top 5 vote getters and linked page shows all stories that got votes today.
My Stories now has columns for Total Votes and Weekly Votes.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Not Sure I Understand...
How would an author tell the difference between a story nobody read and a story nobody voted for? (Especially if some people get two votes and others don't.)
Eric
Hit counts?
But this way there are no negative or low votes for people to play gotcha with, which is what was happening with the stars.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
New Voting Feature
First, I like it! It provides a nice, simple way for readers to show support for a story. A comment is still the most welcome way of course, but this allows those who don't like to leave comments a great way to endorse a story to others.
It will only work if we use it folks. It's just a simple click on the voting box to say, 'I like this story and I think you might too!'
One suggestion, Erin. Is there a way to add another box to the end of the story, or move the current box down there. I think this feature might have more success if readers don't have to scroll up after reading to vote. I know I forgot several times while I was reading Sk8r Girls last night.
Scott
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Lazarus Long - Robert A. Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love'
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Location of the box
I'm looking at that. I'd like it near the bottom, too.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Vote!!!!!
This Idea was - is - great, but it seems like people have stoped using it already. The new stories aren't getting the votes they got last week (An impression, not a study). Why??
I second that!
I would add too that readers needn't restrict themselves to new stories. When you re-read an old favorite, click on the vote box. If it's good enough to read again, it must be good enough to recommend to others. I have been going back to some old favorites of mine since the feature was added and casting my vote for them, and I intend to do it every time I read them.
Scott
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Lazarus Long - Robert A. Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love'
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Wow! I love it!
With "My Stories," I can actually see how many people accessed one of my stories today! It's a nice reminder that the work you post stays posted and read, even if the new people don't comment.
Thanks, Erin. *hugs* It's awesome!
Randalynn
I must be missing something
I don't see how I can acess the information with your new system. What should I be doing?
Click on My Stories
in the left column menu.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.